


a serpent walks into a bar

by squishyserpent



Series: a serpent and a snake [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Light-Hearted, M/M, expect angst and the big sad in the future, loki and crowley being the disaster duo they were destined to be, mentions aziraphale, the next part will be heavier i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:29:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squishyserpent/pseuds/squishyserpent
Summary: Crowley, a demon of hell drifting about the 1970s, stumbles upon a bar owned by Loki, a god of mischief, who had time-traveled from 2012. Drinking, laughter, and general chaos, which is to be expected, ensues.





	a serpent walks into a bar

**Author's Note:**

> after a tweet of mine (@starktomercury) gained a lot of attention, I was inspired to write this! please leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed! i'll also be tweeting a lot about this series as well, so feel free to follow my twitter account :)!

Through the curling, lingering midnight fog, a sleek black Bentley barrelled along the road, still managing to look graceful and composed despite an apparent disregard for speed limits. The driver didn’t much care. (It’s important to note that this said driver was a demon of hell, originally named Crawly but now going by Crowley. There was no rule stating demons of hell had to abide by the laws of the road, so Crowley didn’t. But then again, he probably was the only demon who did drive.)

“ _Alright my devout listeners, here’s a song from the newly released, yes, just for you, Sheer Heart Attack album by Queen. This is Lap of the Gods, and you’re listening to…”_ The radio emitted a DJ’s cooing voice, echoing throughout the car. The demon tapped the wheel excitedly with anticipation.

Roger Taylor’s falsetto danced around Crowley’s ears, and the music was enough to inspire him to drive even more recklessly. The problem was, with reckless driving, that it normally indicated the driver was headed somewhere of great importance, somewhere that the driver could not lawfully wait for. Crowley had no destination, no one waiting for his car to pull into a driveway, no one waiting for him to return or arrive. He did, once, but he hadn’t talked to him in years.

The currently purposeless demon was drifting, burning rubber and crossing countless miles of cracking pavement simply because he could. It was nearing the point of the night where the only life that still scrambled about were drunkards and criminals, something the demon didn’t mind in the slightest.

Just as Crowley was about to pull his car around in the opposite direction, a flash of neon assaulted his vision, causing him to blink and stop. He glanced upwards, turning the volume dial down on his radio, silencing Freddie Mercury momentarily. It was a bar, adorned with a tacky yet surprisingly glossy array of neon lights, attracting young and lively folk like mosquitoes.

Crowley, weighing his nonexistent options, continued driving straight and pulled into the parking lot of the bar. 

\---

The din of the rowdy college students, grumbling of aged drinkers, and entrancing music mingled together in a rising bubble, something that made the bartender smile with satisfaction. He couldn’t fathom anything else that gave him the same level of satisfaction. Anything deemed respectable anyway. Being a god of mischief, you tended to enjoy a lot of things not viewed as respectable.

Just as the bartender was about to slide one of his customers another shot of vodka, his inner peace was disturbed by a great burst of rock music that somehow managed to rise above the noise. The bartender watched as a Bentley, completely cloaked by the dark, rolled to a halt, the music obnoxiously blasting from it. The driver, unaware that half of the bar had stopped to glance at him through the glass, left the car casually, his sauntering visible even from the bartender’s perspective.

Once this mysterious driver entered the bar, all of its occupants returned to their conversation and dancing, not daring to give him a second look. The driver seemed to be used to this treatment, as he sidled up to the bar. The bartender pushed aside his own masked curiosity and moved towards him.

The bartender took this man’s request, an “extremely dry, as dry as you can make” martini, loaded with a staggering amount of olives, silently taking in his appearance. His ginger hair was cut in bangs at his forehead, with the rest of his long strands hanging down to his neck, which was covered with an elegant turtleneck. What was most intriguing was his sunglasses, something he hadn’t considered moving from his face despite being inside a bar at night.

As he topped the man’s drink with olives, internally hoping he’d have some left over by the end of the night, he felt something in him twitch. The bartender flashed a look at the man, sending an odd feeling or aura radiating from the man. Whatever he was sensing suggested this man was not human.

What the bartender didn’t know was that the man he was serving felt the same thing. 

“Loki, darling, I’ll be needing another shot over here!” A cheerfully drunk girl sang from the other end of the bar, interrupting Loki’s scanning of the man.

As Loki turned to refill the girl’s drink, Crowley repeated the name to himself as he sipped his martini, curiosity flooding his mind, which was about to be assaulted by alcohol.

The bar flooded with unceasing swarms of people, leaving Loki little time to study this mysterious person, only returning to grant him more martinis and more olives. Loki caught himself steal a look at the clock multiple times, his thoughts of curiosity and speculation accumulating as the night went on.

Crowley was completely unaffected by the passage of time in which he drank. He could drink for days on end, something he had done in the past due to the actions of a certain angel. With another sip, he pushed this further out of his mind, deciding to focus on this strange bartender, who was most certainly not a human. Crowley couldn’t necessarily pick out auras, but he was able to sense things. For example, when entering a crime-infested area, he could sense it. But, deciphering these senses was entirely left up to him, something he probably wouldn’t have the capacity to do considering how much he had drank so far. 

And so, the night went on, with both the god of mischief and the demon both silently wondering who the hell the other was. 

———

The bar had finally winded down, leaving only a few stragglers and college students to lick their alcohol induced wounds. Loki, breathing a sigh of relief, with the grace of a snake, slid over to the mystery man. He avoided his gaze by polishing a glass that most certainly did not need polishing.

“You’re not human.” The man blurted, his voice heavy with drink, his hands waving haphazardly as he attempted to lock them into an accusatory pose.

Loki looked over at the others slumped at the bar, seeing if they had heard. They nursed their drinks with indifference. 

Loki moved closer, pushing a strand of curling dark hair from his eyes.

“And you’re not either.” Loki shot back with a knowing tone, placing his glass on the space on the counter that wasn’t littered with martini glasses. 

The man nodded in agreement, mostly to himself. 

“Alright, I’ll be right back. Got to sober up. But then, you and I will be having a little chat.” The man responded back, his voice rising unevenly, causing Loki to cringe slightly.

Loki sighed woefully, knowing he’d have to clean up this man’s sobering technique later.

As if catching his concerns, the man turned before heading to the bathroom, saying, “Don’t worry, I can sober up in a way that won’t require a mop.”

And with that, he sauntered off to the bathroom, leaving a bewildered god of mischief to stare at a pyramid of martini glasses in wait. 

The last of the bar’s customers filed out of the bar, caused by a slight movement of Crowley’s hand. The customers nodded, paid their tabs and headed out into the night. Loki scrunched his eyebrows.

The man returned, sauntering with the same grace he had when he arrived at the bar, any sign of intoxication completely removed. He sat back in his stool, expectant. 

“I hope you plan on compensating for my loss of customers.” Loki said halfheartedly, already sweeping away the abandoned glasses and flicking off the neon lights. 

He said it halfheartedly due to his honest lack of regard or interest in currency. He dismissed it as a Midgardian concern, a concern solved with the simplest of spells. It was how he had brought his beloved bar into existence, after all.

The man seemed almost shocked he had noticed the action, but he played it off well enough.

“They were going to leave soon, anyway. The sign says you close at 2:00. It’s 1:56 now.” The man pointed out, looking towards the clock and putting his hand beneath his chin victoriously.

Loki, lacking an argument for that point, headed over to the door of the bar to place a closed sign before it.

“You’re not a demon. I haven’t seen you lurking about hell, not that I stay down there very long. Who are you?” The man inquired, pushing the sunglasses sliding down his nose back onto his face. 

“Ah, my bar, so you answer my questions first.” Loki countered, gesturing about the bar to capitalize it. 

The man, accepting this, leaned back in his stool, somehow managing a lounging position, waiting. 

“Well, to put it simply, who are you?”

“I’m Crowley. A demon of hell; demons typically don’t stay up on Earth, but, when you stay for a couple millennia, it’s easy to get attached.” Crowley replied, watching as Loki finished his cleaning with a sweep of his hand, bringing all of the dirty coasters and glasses to their rightful places.

Crowley whistled in admiration.

“Why are you here?” Loki asked, trying to compress his questions into ones that would get him useful answers.

“Do you mean, why am I in your bar, or why am I on Earth?” 

“Both.” 

“Well, I was drawn to your bar by the _blinding_ display of neon and promise of alcohol, and I’m here on Earth to thwart the plans of...an angel, to contribute to the eventual Armageddon.” Crowley explained, his pause heavy with underlying emotion.

Loki hummed, digesting this. This was certainly a first to hear, even for the god.

“Well, I also did try to contribute to Armageddon at one point.”

Crowley hummed now, rapping his chin with his finger. 

“Seems like we were both unsuccessful.”

This causes Loki to laugh, something he realizes he hadn’t done in a long time.

“Any more questions?”

“Just one. What’s with the glasses?”

Crowley opened his mouth to reply, but Loki added, purely for fun, “Does it have to do with drugs?” 

Crowley rolled his eyes, inspiring the god to push his buttons more in the future. 

Crowley dragged his sunglasses down his nose in answer, revealing golden pupils resembling that of a snake’s. They caught the dim light of the bar magnificently. 

“I didn’t have _you_ pegged for a snake!” Loki gasped, causing the demon to smile slightly and push the glasses back to their rightful place.  

“ _Serpent_.” Crowley corrected, his eyes smiling beneath the glasses.

“So, if you’re a serpent, and a demon of hell, as you say…you _must_ have been involved with the Garden of Eden and all of that nonsense, right?” Loki asked, pausing and then snapping his fingers at the end of his sentence as he recollected his knowledge of Midgardian religion.

The demon squinted his eyes beneath his glasses, his face twisting defensively.

“ _Nonsense_ ? The Garden of Eden was _pivotal_ to what exists now, I’ll have you know!” Crowley shot back his answer with a fold of his arms.  

Loki chuckled now, reveling in his pouting expression.

“Well, Loki, what have _you_ done that has affected the Earth? Besides bringing bars into existence, of course.” Crowley pried, his smile curling.  

“Well, _Crowley_ ,” Loki began, dragging out his name with effect, “ _I_ am from the future, a future in which I almost brought Armageddon myself, with the power of the Tesseract, and at the expense of the Avengers…” 

Crowley butted in, waving his hands in exasperation.   

“Okay, I’ve just sobered up, and now you’re making me feel drunk again. Slow down. _What_ point in the future, and what the heaven is a Tesseract, or the Avengers or...whatever you just said.”

“Around 2012. Anyway, the Avengers are...well, pretty annoying in my opinion, defenders of Earth.” Loki replied, sarcasm dripping in his tone, emphasizing to Crowley how annoying they can be.

“And a Tesseract is a cube shaped power sou—“

Crowley butted in again, this time laughing. 

“Wait, wait, a _cube_ shaped thing? You’re telling me you almost brought the Earth to her knees with a cube?” Crowley broke off his sentence with laughter, slapping the counter.  

Loki, somehow feeling the need to defend the Tesseract, responded with, “That cube brought me here, to this time period, and _almost_ brought the Armageddon you and your forces have been working towards.”  

Crowley nodded, still smiling.

“ _Almost_. Seems like Armageddon’s a hard thing to bring about on both ends. Well, I don’t even know your end, fully. What’d you say you were?”

“I’m a god of mischief, from Asgard. And before you say it, no, it is not spelled like _Ass_ -gard.”

Crowley looked rather deflated, considering the god had shot down his joke. He had never met a god of mischief before, he noted, or any god, with or without a capital G.

“What was this Asgard like?” Crowley asked, forcing himself to say it correctly.

“It was grand, and prosperous, and…” Loki paused, causing the demon to raise his eyebrows.

“Not a place I necessarily fit in.” Loki finished quickly.

“I can relate to that; I’m not exactly everyone’s favorite demon down in hell.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, most of the demons down in hell don’t...think. They just _do_. They don’t question anything, they don’t focus on anything other than Armageddon, the Great War, all that. They can’t understand what Earth is like, or anything else.” Crowley explained, suddenly wishing for another martini.

“Ugly little buggers, anyway. With dirt and lizards and all those lovely things.” Crowley added with a shudder. 

Loki grimaced.

“Seems like you got out of hell looking decent enough.” Loki joked, grinning.

Crowley threw his hands across his chest in mock surprise, abashed.

"Oh, why thank you. And may I just say that you may be the most dashing god of mischief to walk this Earth!” Crowley gasped.

The two laughed, the night rolling on as the god and the demon chatted. Tales of gods, demons, heaven, hell, and other fantastical subjects floated around the bar, something its bartender never would have expected.

———

When the clock above the bar hit 4:00, Crowley figured that he should head back to his flat, despite the fact that only his potted plants were waiting for him. Loki agreed, quite shocked that he had lost track of time. He always headed out of the bar promptly after closing, not wasting a minute more than he had to. Then again, it’s not like he had acquaintances to hold him there. 

Crowley stood and stretched while Loki grabbed the keys, the both of them walking out of the bar and into the night, which had become dawn. Crowley sidled up to his Bentley, leaning on it as Loki locked the door, adding a few whispered charms for good measure.

“Well, Loki, that was one of the best evenings I’ve had in awhile.” Crowley said with a happy sigh. “Am I granted permission to return?”

“Undoubtedly.” Loki replied, giving him a genuine smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he gave one.

Crowley nodded, smiling back. His glasses inched down his face, and he didn’t flick them back as quickly as he had before.

“I’ll be back.” Crowley assured, swinging open the door of his Bentley.

The Bentley rolled out of its parking spot, roaring away with a flash of headlights and a swell of music, leaving the god of mischief in the parking lot of his bar.

Loki put his hands in his suit pockets, feeling satisfied. He hadn’t anticipated having a friend.

Loki, not appreciating or understanding the Midgardian practice of driving, simply teleported back to his apartment.

He’d be looking forward to their next encounter.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comment if you like :)!


End file.
